Since its first inception in the debate on the relationship between environment and growth in 1992, the Environmental Kuznets Curve has been subject of continuous and intense scrutiny. The literature can be roughly divided in two historical phases. Initially, after the seminal contributions,...

Accurate forecasts of incoming calls are crucial to optimal staffing decisions in call centers. This paper evaluates a wide range of models and forecast combination techniques by means of statistical and economic criteria. Relative to the previous literature, this paper is novel in several...

This paper examines the relationship between the exposure to foreign trade and productivity growth for a sample of Indian manufacturing firms. By testing a catching up model of productivity growth, it sheds some light on the nature of the relationship between the exposure to foreign competition...

This paper examines the link between imported technologies and a country’s export performance, as measured by product quality. The analysis is set against the background of the process of regional integration between the EU and its neighbouring developing countries. The underlying question is...

This report summarizes the measures of contingent protection regulated by the WTO and their purposes. They can be divided into two categories. The first one regards temporary provisions that can be used when a predefined set of circumstances legitimize temporary increases in import barriers. The...

This module illustrates the basics of trade policy analysis. It focuses on the following questions: 1) What do countries gain by trading with each other instead of opting for self sufficiency?; 2) What are the main instruments of trade policy?; 3) How do they affect prices, output and welfare?;...

This book examines the effects of trade on growth and poverty. It addresses the following questions:1) Which are the channels through which trade openness may affect the economic activities of a given country? ; 2) What are the effects of trade openness on growth? ; and 3) What are the effects...

This module takes a bird eye view of the historical pattern of globalization, with special reference to trade flows and it examines the role played by Russia in this process. The module starts by describing the historical waves of globalization since 1870s and the latest patterns in the process...